


The Needs of the Few

by AuroraNova



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Starfleet Spouse Garak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-23 14:01:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23179264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraNova/pseuds/AuroraNova
Summary: Not all Starfleet captains are as wise, or forgiving, as Captain Sisko.On the plus side, Julian is still very much alive - no thanks to his current commanding officer.
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 35
Kudos: 239





	The Needs of the Few

**Author's Note:**

> I've been playing, here and there, with the idea of Garak as a Starfleet spouse. It suddenly struck me that under the wrong captain, this arrangement might not work too well because Garak will break the rules as he deems necessary, and thus a new fic was born.

Julian was under no illusions. Elim had made sure of that, and considering recent events, Julian already found his optimism on the ebb.

“Come in,” said Captain Sharl. She was looking out her ready room window when he entered, and Julian wondered if she was contemplating how she’d left three members of her crew to die. He hoped so.

“Have a seat, Doctor.”

Julian remained pointedly standing. The captain bowed her antennae in a way he hadn’t seen from her before. He’d kept meaning to read up on the meaning of more obscure Andorian antennae placements, thought it wasn’t likely to matter now.

“I will not do you the discourtesy of obfuscating,” said Sharl. “Your husband is not welcome on my ship, Doctor Bashir, and I intend to see him punished.”

Julian opted for the kind of exaggerated deference which conveyed the opposite of respect. “I won’t fight the transfer request, ma’am.”

Captains usually had their way regardless. A crewmember could make the process a hassle, thanks to some well-intentioned but easily exploited Starfleet regulations put into place by an admiral who felt unjustly removed from his post early in his career. Julian was not willing to stoop to that level. He preferred to keep his dignity, thank you.

Sharl didn’t seem heartened by the news. “You realize, of course, that considering Garak’s actions, I will have to recommend against allowing him on any Starfleet vessel or station. I don’t know what kind of station Sisko ran on Deep Space Nine. Maybe he let people get away with this kind of stunt, but I won’t tolerate it, and I doubt many commanding officers would disagree with me.”

“Captain Sisko ran the kind of station where he didn’t leave people behind.” As soon as the words left his mouth, Julian realized he’d forgotten to request permission to speak freely. He never was any good at performative respect to people he didn’t think deserved even the charade.

The captain frowned, her antennae folding back defensively. “It wasn’t a decision I made lightly, Doctor. The odds of the away team still being alive were astonishingly low, and I couldn’t justify risking a war with the Tzenkethi for a recovery mission. You know as well as I do that the Federation barely survived the last war. Do you think I didn’t agonize over the small chance you were still alive? Because I did. That’s the burden of command.”

Some people were clearly not cut out for this particular burden. Julian had had his doubts about Sharl before this incident. He’d suspected her wartime promotions were given more out of necessity than strict merit, but opted to give her the benefit of the doubt.

That benefit was revoked when she left him and two other people to suffocate to death in a disabled shuttle.

As it was, Elim barely got to them before they ran out of oxygen. They were down to six minutes before anoxic brain injury reached the point of permanence, and Julian had no interest in serving under a captain who would leave him and two other crewmembers to such a fate. He wasn’t even sure he had an interest in staying in Starfleet if he was going to suffer retribution for being alive, but Elim had elicited a promise not to make any rash decisions. Even in the brig, Elim’s concern remained only for Julian, not his own situation.

And some people had doubted Elim was husband material.

“Garak gave you an out,” he said to Sharl, even though he knew her mind was already made up.

“By locking the crew out of our controls and stealing a shuttle!” She wasn’t yelling, but it was a near thing. She was taking this very personally.

Well, so was Julian. Being six minutes away from irreversible brain damage, and shortly thereafter death, would do that to a person.

“Yes. He did. So if the Tzenkethi captured him, you had plausible deniability and a clear record that Starfleet personnel did not violate the border. The Tzenkethi would’ve settled for his execution.” If they caught him, which they did not thanks to some extremely creative shield modifications. The whole plan was as well thought-out as Julian would expect from Elim, and he didn’t know why Sharl couldn’t see it. Captain Sisko would have.

Then again, Captain Sisko wouldn’t have written the away team off as dead for the sake of convenience.

Sharl remained unmoved. “That might have carried more weight if he’d bothered to inform me beforehand.”

She really didn’t understand how plausible deniability worked, did she? Fine. Julian was not about to apologize for his continued existence nor how it came to be.

“As I said, I won’t fight your transfer request.” He suspected she’d also receive one initiated by another member of the away team. Ensign Vasilakis had looked profoundly betrayed when he discovered the rescue mission was unofficial and in fact illegal, so Julian doubted the biologist’s willingness to continue serving under Sharl.

The third member of their party, Lieutenant T’Sel, anticipated the lack of rescue as soon as she saw that the gravimetric anomaly had flung them into Tzenkethi space, and promptly fell back on the Vulcan adage about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few.

Julian didn’t entirely disagree with that particular Vulcan principle. He did, however, believe the few deserved every possible effort.

When the captain said nothing, Julian decided to move the conversation along. He had better ways to spend his afternoon. First and foremost, he needed to contact lawyers on Elim’s behalf. What was the typical sentence for stealing a Starfleet shuttle, anyway? Did returning it intact and with rescued crewmembers earn leniency? And that wasn’t even getting into his own career prospects, which were honestly less of a priority at the moment, though he’d need to give them serious thought at some point.

“Is there anything else, ma’am?” he asked.

“No. For what it’s worth, I am sorry you’re in a position of choosing between your career and your husband.”

If that was how she saw the situation, she was sorely mistaken. How could he be expected to agonize over a career which would have seen him dead if she had her way? Julian was perfectly well aware that Starfleet was not the safest career choice he could have made, and he accepted that he could well die in the line of duty. But to die for nothing because his captain wasn’t imaginative enough or simply didn’t value his life enough to try and save him? That was altogether different.

“No need to worry about it. There’s not a doubt in my mind. You’ve made it quite simple, so thank you for that. May I be dismissed, Captain?”

She bristled for a moment, then deflated in resignation. “Dismissed, Doctor.”

On his way out, Julian realized he’d never missed Captain Sisko more. There was a man he’d followed gladly, and if Sisko ever returned to linear existence, Julian intended to tell him just how much his wise, compassionate leadership had meant.

In the meantime, he had to find a good lawyer and make sure the brig wasn’t aggravating Elim’s claustrophobia beyond his ability to handle. How one went about finding a good criminal defense lawyer, Julian wasn’t certain. He obviously had some research to do, starting with legal representation and then moving on to possible places to practice medicine if he did, in fact, have to choose between Starfleet and Elim. 

Diminished career prospects were surely better than the alternative in this case. He was alive, and he had a devoted husband who would stop at nothing to keep him that way. There were worse fates than leaving Starfleet, if it came to that. Death, for instance.

He still missed Captain Sisko desperately.


End file.
